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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546209">pray the sun will rise again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBlood1872/pseuds/BlackBlood1872'>BlackBlood1872</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>King Falls AM (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Closeted Character, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Missing Persons, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Police, Pre-Canon, Supernatural Elements, currently. that should change later, sorry but Jack is a minor character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:40:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,386</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546209</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackBlood1872/pseuds/BlackBlood1872</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's latest obsession has fatal consequences. Sammy is left to pick up the pieces, left with a mystery he can't unravel. He only has one definitive lead.</p><p>King Falls.</p><p>Therein lie the answers to the mysteries plaguing him: Jack's descent and murder, the indecipherable messages, the inescapable draw to this town. The shadows, always just out of sight.</p><p>Sammy <em>will</em> find the truth—or die trying.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Gone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>me: i'm going to write more fics for other fandoms cuz i have <em>too many</em> for KFAM<br/>also me: starts a new long fic for KFAM on a whim</p><p>Enjoy? It starts sad and slowly gets better. Eventually.</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Extra warnings for: referenced couple-arguments, Sammy-typical self-hatred, vomiting, supernatural-type stalking, funerals, Void-typical sfx</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack Wright goes missing on the 28th of January.</p><p>That morning, Sammy wakes to an empty bed. It isn't odd. He'd gone to bed alone the night before; he'd been sleeping alone for the last week, ever since their latest argument. Jack took the couch or locked himself in his office, and Sammy can count on both hands how many times he's seen his boyfriend during this week and still have enough left over to flip him off. So the day doesn't start with any sort of troubled feeling, not even when he finds an empty den, an empty kitchen. The door to Jack's office is closed.</p><p>No, the unease doesn't hit until Sammy glances towards the front door. Because sitting just off to the side, unassuming and neat, is one of their larger suitcases. A smaller duffel bag sits in front of it, and it's not zipped up completely. Even from the couch, Sammy can see the notebooks peeking out. Can see Jack's laptop, gleaming in the morning light.</p><p>The apartment suddenly feels too quiet, as if the air stood still the same time he caught his breath. Logically, he knows the fridge is humming behind him, the lights buzzing, the city outside unapologetically loud, but he can barely hear them. He can't hear any movement from the hall. The usual noises of Jack pacing or writing or mumbling to himself are gone. There isn't even the feeling of a presence, as if he's only asleep, hidden behind those walls.</p><p>Sammy finds himself walking towards the office on suddenly unstable legs. His skin feels wrong, as if it isn't his, as if he's watching himself move from somewhere else. His hands are shaking as he turns the knob and enters that room.</p><p>Empty. Cleared out, except for scraps of paper crumpled in the trash, torn corners still taped to the wall. The back of the chair is against the wall opposite the desk, as if Jack had pushed it away and never attempted to fix it. The map remains, hanging next to the desk, defaced as it is. Notes of various different colors are scattered across it, some crossed out, some circled. X's litter the surface, all over different town names. One had been circled in red so many times the paper has torn.</p><p><em>King Falls??</em> is written above the circle, Jacks handwriting gone ragged and spiky. Sammy recognizes the name, knows it almost as well as his own. Jack was looking into it, tracing so many paranormal or supernatural events and occurrences to the area. He said that's where the calls were coming from, even though there was never any evidence. They never had a number attached. They weren't <em>anything</em>, and he'd said so, and Jack's eyes grew a little wilder each time. It's been days since Jack tried to share a new one with him. Sammy suspects it's not because they stopped.</p><p>Sammy finds himself back in the common room, sitting in the armchair and staring, unfocused, at Jack's luggage. He's planning to leave. He… has left? But then why didn't he take anything with him, why would he pack his things if he was just going to leave them for Sammy to find? Sammy digs his fingers into his hair and twists.</p><p>It feels like hours pass before Sammy can make himself stand up and investigate.</p><p>Jack's keys are still in the bowl by the door, his car still in its designated parking lot. His phone is in the same bag as his laptop. The large suitcase has some clothes, a few other essentials, but most of the space is filled with the rest of Jack's research.</p><p>All of his belongings are still here, but Jack isn't anywhere in the apartment. Isn't anywhere in sight.</p><p>Sammy calls co-workers. He calls Jack's friends. He calls the <em>bodega</em> down the street, for God's sake. None of them are happy to hear from him, and none of them have any idea where Jack is. His friends haven't seen him in weeks, the cashier at the store doesn't even know who he is (though she definitely recognizes Sammy's voice, and has some <em>words</em> for him), and their co-workers last saw him leaving work that Saturday.</p><p>He's just… gone. Packed up and ready to go—and vanished into thin air.</p><p>Sammy reports him missing that evening. Explains the bags, how no one's seen him, how he left no clues as to where he went. They ask him to come to the station tomorrow, answer questions and fill out a few forms. "Just to get as much preliminary information as possible," they reassure him. Sammy isn't sure if this is how this sort of thing usually goes, or if they thinks he's a—a <em>suspect</em> in a <em>murder</em>—</p><p>He does go in. They give him a clipboard with a few papers to fill out, check boxes and write out exactly what led to Jack's disappearance. Sign here to confirm you're a real person. An officer takes him to a cement box of a room and asks a few questions. Nothing probing, trying to edge him towards any sort of confession. It doesn't seem like he expects anything; "It's just routine investigation," he says, after Sammy makes some kind of face.</p><p>"Well. Just, try to find him? I'm—worried," Sammy says, and it's stilted and awkward and he doesn't want to come across as someone hiding some sort of secret—except that he <em>is</em>, he always is when he talks about Jack and what they are to each other. He wonders how many other closeted people get suspected of crime when really they're just scared.</p><p>They let him go home. There isn't even one mention of making sure he stays in the city.</p>
<hr/><p>Days pass. Jack doesn't come home, and Sammy gets infrequent calls from the police station, each one amounting to little more than "we're still looking". There's no sign of him anywhere. There are no clues.</p><p>Sammy's a wreck at work. He can't slip back into his Shotgun persona, too worried, and everything he says comes out wooden and stiff. His ratings plummet. His co-workers start gossiping, wondering <em>why</em> Jack's disappearance is affecting him so much.</p><p>"You don't think—" Marshal from morning drive mutters to Dawn from evening news.</p><p>Sammy stops around the corner, leaning against the wall. They haven't seen him yet. They'd stop talking if they did, and he wants to <em>know</em>. His pulse hammers in his ears.</p><p>"I mean, maybe?" Dawn says. "The guy goes missing and he just <em>breaks down</em>. That seems a bit much for just friends, if you ask me."</p><p>"That's stupid," another voice cuts in, derisive. Mike from Friday night reviews. "There's no way Shotgun's gay."</p><p>Sammy closes his eyes.</p><p>"You never know some people," Dawn says. "And we really <em>don't</em> know Stevens that well. He never hangs out with any of us outside this place. Did you know I've asked him to drinks with some other hosts? Always turned me down. I think Jack was the only person he <em>ever</em> hung out with."</p><p>"That doesn't mean he's gay," Marshal argues. "He could just be… shy, or something."</p><p>Mike snorts. "<em>Shotgun</em>? <em>Shy</em>? I don't know if you ever met the man, but he ain't <em>shy</em>."</p><p>"That's true," Dawn grumbles. "He's <em>definitely</em> not shy about his <em>opinions</em> of <em>women</em>."</p><p>Sammy pushes away from the wall and walks back the way he came, trying to keep his footsteps quiet. He—he can't right now. He knows most of that, what his colleagues think of him, but he still <em>hates</em> it. That this role he's made for himself has eclipsed every other bit of his personality, that no one even <em>wants</em> to see if he's any different underneath it.</p><p>Jack could see it. Sammy was free to let Shotgun fall away like an ill-fitting coat, around Jack.</p><p>But Jack is <em>gone.</em> And he's got a sinking, hollow feeling that he's never coming back.</p>
<hr/><p>Sammy gets the call exactly three weeks after Jack goes missing.</p><p>"We need you to come down to the county morgue at your earliest convenience," the woman on the phone says. Sammy can tell she's trying to be compassionate as well as professional, but it's forced. She calls so many people. This is rote. <em>Her</em> heart isn't beating wildly in her chest, fear making her fingers go numb. She isn't breathing so shallowly her head is starting to swim. No, that's just him.</p><p>"I'll—I'll be there in ten minutes," he says, and he doesn't know if it's true. He doesn't know how far away the morgue is, how long it'll take him to drive there. To <em>run</em>. To make his body stop shaking long enough to get out of this chair.</p><p>"Thank you, sir," she says, and hangs up.</p><p>It takes him almost an hour to get there. No one says anything about it.</p><p>They need him to identify the body. It's hidden under a crisp white sheet, the feet out in the open. There's a tag on one of his toes.</p><p>The coolth of a winter which is not yet spring has kept him well preserved. The coroner can't determine a concrete time of death, saying it could have been anywhere between now and the last week of January. Sammy can't hear everything the man says, can barely pick out enough words to understand the gist. Jack's skin is so grey in the stark light.</p><p>The coroner turns down the sheet to the shoulders. Sammy immediately looks at the face, tries to meet his eyes—and almost retches. They're gone, torn out or dissolved or— He doesn't know what could have happened. The inky darkness where Jack's eyes should be is nothing but unnatural. They aren't closed, because that would imply he still had lids to close. The sockets are gaping holes, so black it lacks depth. Those shadows spill out like smoke, wisps trailing over his cheeks, down towards his ears. They almost look like tears.</p><p>He almost looks peaceful, if it weren't for his eyes. If it weren't for the deep wounds Sammy can see peeking out from under the sheet, if his skin wasn't so grey. If he weren't so definitively dead.</p><p>"It's him," he hears himself says, voice hoarse. "That's—Jack Wright."</p><p>He wishes he couldn't tell. Wishes this won't be the face he'll always picture when he thinks of the last time he saw his boyfriend.</p><p>"Jesus," Sammy whispers, and the coroner hums sympathetically. He replaces the sheet and Sammy hates himself for being grateful. "Do you… do you have <em>any idea</em> what happened to him?"</p><p>"Not a one!" the man says, and must realize it sounds too cheerful because his voice is lower when he continues. "It's a… very odd case, to be sure. The injuries are all perfectly clean and there was no sign of blood when they brought him in. There's no evidence that it was washed off and I'm tempted to believe that his wounds didn't bleed <em>at all</em>. It's—well, ah. You probably don't want to know the details."</p><p>Sammy very much does not.</p><p>"Sorry about that," the doctor says now, heading to the table along the wall. He does something on the computer, using some program Sammy can't make heads or tails of. "I've been told I have the bad habit of running my mouth and <em>‘no one wants to hear about your cadavers, David’</em>. Honestly. Uh, you can go now, I just needed someone to confirm his identity. Though," he turns around, picking up a pen and sticky note pad, "I should just ask, do you know any of the numbers for his family members? We'll need to contact them next."</p><p>Lily's face pops into his mind, the scowl she wore the last time he saw her. Her cheeks were still red from all the yelling she'd done, before, until she deliberately stopped talking. She'd watched them pack their things into the moving truck, arms tightly crossed under her chest, her eyes blazing with hatred—and something else underneath that, an emotion that made him ache to think about. Back then, he had ignored it. As if not acknowledging it would make it go away, as if it were never there. Her number is still in his phone, because Jack asked him to keep it, even though they haven't spoken since that day. Sammy tries to imagine her face when she gets this call.</p><p>He thinks the heartbreak in her eyes would finally eclipse the rage, and he has to close his eyes against it.</p><p>"Mr Stevens?" the doctor prompts. Sammy takes a deep breath.</p><p>"Yeah, I've—I've got his sister's number. She'll be—she'll be able to contact the rest of their family, I think." He hates the thought of dumping the responsibility on her, but he can't deal with this. And he's… As far as anyone else is concerned, Sammy's only his friend. His roommate, his co-worker. No one would ever expect him to do anything more than mourn.</p><p>It feels like a betrayal. It feels like running away. But Sammy's always been good at that, hasn't he?</p><p>He makes it out of the building and around to the alley before he throws up. When he closes his eyes, all he can see is Jack's blank face, those damn <em>shadows</em> melting from his eyes. He never believed the man when he went on about ghosts and monsters and the voices only he could hear on his phone. The crawling darkness that stalked him, movement he could only see out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>Sammy wishes it hadn't taken his <em>death</em> to prove just how real the danger is.</p><p>He leans against the stone wall of the morgue, slumped with his hands in his hair. It's not dark, it's still midday with the sun high and illuminating the majority of this alley—but still, when his focus starts to drift, he thinks he see… <em>something</em>, in the still darkened corners. Shadows too deep to be natural, too thick to be anything but <em>something</em>, more substance that mere lack of light has any right to be.</p><p>Jack had been aware of the darkness. It had killed him.</p><p>And it looks like it's just changed targets.</p><p>Sammy stumbles back to his car, back to his too large apartment. He keeps the lights on, that night. He doesn't know if it helps. He doesn't know what else to do.</p>
<hr/><p>They request his presence at the police station the next day and, unlike last time, this is absolutely an interrogation. He tries not to look guilty. He can't stop thinking about the shadows clinging to Jack's skin.</p><p>"Where were you the night of January 28th?" the officer asks him, sounding bored. She's looking at the folder instead of him. There's a picture of Jack, as he was in the morgue, attached to the cover with a paperclip. Sammy tries not to look at it but it lingers, unsettling, near the edge of his vision.</p><p>"I was at home, talking to you guys, actually. I made a missing person's report. I can—I can show you my call history if—"</p><p>"That won't be necessary," she says. She has a notepad at her elbow, but she doesn't write anything down. "I believe you. Do you know of anyone who'd want Jack dead?"</p><p>Sammy shakes his head immediately. "No. Everyone loved him. He was—he was a really great guy."</p><p>She hums. She flips to another page. There are only three in there; Sammy suspects they're his report, the lacking investigation notes, and the coroner's assessment.</p><p>After a brief, uncomfortable silence, the officer sighs and drops the folder. She leans forward, clasping her hands on the table. "I'm going to be frank with you, Sam." (He doesn't correct her about his name; in here, it doesn't matter what his preferred nickname is.) "You're not a suspect. There's no way you or anyone else could have done <em>this</em>—" she gestures to the folder and the coroner's photo. Sammy doesn't look at it. "—to him. My guess is they're going to slap a section thirty-one on this and be done with it."</p><p>Sammy doesn't ask what that means. He's sure he doesn't want to know.</p><p>The officer leans back and starts stacking her papers. "You're free to go."</p><p>Sammy has his hand on the doorknob when she calls his name again. He turns back to see her looking at him with sympathetic eyes. It's the first real emotion he's seen from her. "I'm sorry for your loss," she tells him. Sammy swallows, feeling his eyes start to prickle, and can only nod in response.</p>
<hr/><p>Sammy lets the Wright family handle the funeral. He's there as Jack's friend and roommate only, because that's all they know him as. None of them knew they were dating. He's not even sure how many knew Jack was gay. Certainly none of them mention it in his eulogy or any of the other speeches made during the day. Sammy could go up there and say his piece as well, but—what would he say? So much of his feelings towards this man are private, hidden things that he never dares let loose from their locked box, deep inside his chest.</p><p>Lily is the only one who knows they were together, and she doesn't look at him even once. She doesn't acknowledge his existence at all, and she vanishes as soon as she possibly can. The family does know she's a lesbian. None of them ever hid how displeased they were. The only one who ever cared for her was her twin, and now he's dead. He's gone, because Sammy took him away all those years ago, because Sammy couldn't love him enough to save him from his own bad habits.</p><p>Sammy doesn't stick around much longer after she leaves. He lets himself spend a silent moment in front of the casket, closed over those unsettling wounds. His thoughts trip over each other, half-finished sentiments and trite phrases. <em>I'm sorry</em>, he thinks, once, and isn't sure what he's apologizing for. He doesn't know what he could have done to prevent this. <em>I love you</em>, he thinks, and hates how he still can't say it out loud. <em>Goodbye</em>, he thinks, because there's nothing left to say.</p><p>And then he turns and flees the hall. There's nothing left for him, now. Nothing here, nothing related to this family that he never cared to know.</p><p>Everything he has left of Jack is back at their apartment. Clothes and books and incomprehensible words.</p>
<hr/><p>Jack's phone is corrupted.</p><p>Sammy can get into it just fine—they've known each other's passwords for months now—but so much of it is illegible. His entire camera roll is nothing but static and shadow, and when there are colors it's just the rainbow glitch of a broken screen, multiplied by a hundred. Sammy can't look at more than a dozen before his eyes hurt from the strain and his head pounds. His notes and documents aren't any better. Every file has suffered the same corruption, and what is legible doesn't make any sense. Sammy isn't even sure it's in English.</p><p>What the fuck did Jack get into?</p><p>…whatever it was, it led to his death. Sammy shouldn't get involved. Nothing good will come of following the same path Jack did, going down the same rabbit hole. He should just—leave the notebooks alone, maybe even throw them out. He'd looked at them before, when Jack was still writing them, and they were full of nonsense ranting and conspiracy theories. Nothing that would bring him any closer to <em>actual</em> answers.</p><p>But… what if they do? What if there's a clue, or a puzzle he can unravel, something, <em>anything</em>, that tells him what Jack could have messed with?</p><p>He doesn't throw any of the books out. But he also doesn't look at them right away. He leaves most of Jack's things packed away in that suitcase, leaves his laptop. Sammy picks one book to flip through and tells himself it's enough. It's the newest one, he knows, because it's the one he saw Jack with last, and if it doesn't have any clues in it, then there won't be any to find.</p><p>He almost can't read Jack's writing. It's spiky and the letters blend into each other for how close they're written. Walls and walls of cramped text swim before his eyes, smudged in places from where Jack's skin brushed the pencil, or from where the ink was still wet. What he can read makes more sense than the notes on his phone, but these snatches of phrase mean little without context.</p><p>Some things catch his eye. <em>Werewolves off route 72</em> and <em>General Abeline in Sweetzer Forest??</em> And repeated, many times through the whole book, is the name <em>King Falls</em>.</p><p>For the first time since Jack mentioned this little town, Sammy starts to seriously wonder <em>what</em>, exactly, is so enthralling about King Falls, Oregon.</p><p>His own research is limited to Google, because he doesn't let himself dig any deeper than that. Going deeper is what led to Jack's death. Maybe it's stupid to even look at what caused it, but Sammy's cautious enough to only sift through the thinnest layer of information. Nothing too malicious about looking at a few Facebook pages. A few articles about events happening in the area.</p><p>Nothing substantial. Nothing that interesting or <em>paranormal</em>, besides the odd mention of big dogs around the trailer park, or the rumor of a creature in the lake.</p><p>Sammy leaves it be after barely an hour, despite his growing, burning, curiosity. It's a perfectly normal mountain town. That's all it ever was.</p><p>He doesn't want to know more about what it <em>could</em> be.</p>
<hr/><p>He isn't sure if it's because he poked around in Jack's phone, because he looked into it himself, or if there's some other reason he has no way of knowing, but the harassment starts soon after.</p><p>Sammy wakes up to find one new voicemail. There are no new calls in his history. He remembers, suddenly and with mounting dread, all the voicemails and messages Jack tried to show him, all the indistinct whispers and sharp bursts of static, the text that swam before his eyes. All of them without a number attached, empty call logs and one-sided conversations.</p><p>Jack could understand them, though they made no sense to Sammy. He could hear the words in the static. Sammy wonders if he'll be able to as well, now.</p><p>He doesn't listen to the voicemail. He gets another the next day. And the next, and the next, until terror dances with rage and finally concedes the lead and Sammy finds himself shaking with his phone against his ear, an automated voice telling him to press <em>one-one</em>.</p><p>He waits, listening to silence, and at first he thinks that's it. It's just a blank message, a few seconds during which someone called, chickened out and just—didn't say anything. He goes to take the phone away from his ear but then something <em>changes</em> and suddenly he can hear—wind. Quiet, almost inaudible, but inarguably the sound of a light breeze. He listens, frozen, until the message ends.</p><p>"To save this mes—"</p><p>He presses <em>four</em>. The message replays and he listens close, straining his ears, and—there. A few seconds in, the wind picks up, raising slowly from utter silence to a cold trickle. It's quiet, no matter how high he turns the call volume. When it ends, this time, the voicemail options are a shout. He scrambles to turn down the sound again, then presses <em>seven</em>.</p><p>The next message starts with that same wind, more obvious without the gradual raise. There are other sounds now, faint, indescribable even after repeat examinations. In the third message, Sammy can make out rustling paper, a dog barking so far in the distance it's as quiet as a whisper.</p><p>The fourth has nothing but howling winds, gale force.</p><p>The fifth, a breeze and paper and the distant, disquieting wail of an infant.</p><p>The sixth, silence again. What might be a human exhale. And a single word, deep and layered over itself until it's almost unrecognizable, breathed as if right into his ear: <em>"Finally."</em></p><p>Sammy drops his phone. The screen cracks, only in the corner, a spider web of hairline fractures that lance through the <em>back</em> button. The female voice asks if he wants to save or delete this message. For more options, press <em>zero</em>.</p><p>Sammy sinks to the floor, legs unable to hold him up. His fingers tangle in his hair and twist, tug, tear at the roots in a mindless, harmful attempt at grounding. It's worked before, the ache anchoring him to this body, the pounding in his skull as loud as the beat of his heart, vines to keep him contained.</p><p>"Are you still there?" his phone says, and repeats his options.</p><p>Sammy presses <em>nine</em>. He knows it won't help.</p><p>He doubts anything will help him, now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Explanation for the voicemail options since apparently they're different for every service provider? I used my own (Bell Canada): 11 at the start plays unheard messages, 4 replays the message, 7 saves it, 9 deletes it.</p><p>This fic was born after I wondered "what little thing can I change at the beginning of canon to make it endgame SamBen?" So, spoiler, this is endgame SamBen. Another pairing tag I'll add once it actually shows up is SamRon. The SamJack is strictly a past relationship. #sorrynotsorry</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Changes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It all comes back to King Falls. Sammy's sure of it. That's the last place Jack researched, it's the place he circled on his map, the place he wouldn't shut up about. Sammy even found road maps with the area marked in Jack's bags. He'd been planning to leave him to go there, and then he'd been killed. It has to be connected.</p><p>It has to have the answers.</p><p>He keeps getting voicemails, all as unmoored as the first. He doesn't listen to them. Eventually, he turns off his voicemail service entirely, unable to locate the real messages within the maelstrom, unwilling to try.</p><p>Now the only messages he receives are <em>theirs</em>, audio files that show up out of nowhere. He ignores them for days on end, deletes them when he has the nerve. Deep down, he knows it doesn't help, doesn't make them liable to leave him be. They'll try again and again until he breaks and listens through, starts to fall into the same madness that consumed Jack.</p><p>He won't let that happen. He <em>can't</em> let that happen.</p><p>…he doesn't know what else he <em>can</em> do.</p>
<hr/><p>Sammy loses his job.</p><p>It's only a surprise in that it takes this long. He expected the stern meetings with the station head back when Jack was still missing, rather than weeks after his funeral. He expected the lessened hours, the rescheduling. He just thinks there should have been a more blatant warning, a meeting where Jason actually <em>told</em> him that he had two weeks to pack up and leave.</p><p>Instead, he gets a notice of termination slid silently across the table, Jason's face unreadable. "We're starting a new segment in that time slot," he says. "I'm sure you understand."</p><p>Sammy does.</p><p>He doesn't have any sort of conventional office space in the building, but he does have a locker in the break room. Sammy doesn't make eye contact with anyone in there, squeezing behind Gerald to reach his door. He locked it, back when he first started here, using one of those combination locks he remembers from high school. Right three times, 17, left, 31, right, 9. He pulls down and palms the lock.</p><p>He didn't keep much here. Didn't see the point of it. There's a ball cap folded in the back, next to a couple unopened bottles of water. A complimentary recipe book he snagged a year ago and never looked at again.</p><p>Nothing worth bothering with. Sammy takes it all with him anyway, awkwardly cradling everything. He doesn't want to wear the hat, but he doesn't really have any hands to hold it with. He ends up putting the water on the table next to Dawn, who eyes them suspiciously.</p><p>"I never opened them," Sammy defends. "You guys can have them if you want."</p><p>"Oh, the <em>guys</em> can, can they?" Dawn grumbles, and it isn't quiet. Sammy thinks it wasn't meant to be.</p><p>"That—I meant anyone, that was just—just the colloquial ‘guys’, I didn't mean to… exclude you."</p><p>They're all looking at him now, stammering and still clutching junk to his chest. Sammy closes his eyes and forces himself to stay where he stands. It's so easy to run away. Much harder to face these situations head on.</p><p>"What are you doing, anyway?" Zeke asks, gesturing at him.</p><p>Sammy smiles mirthlessly. "I got fired," he says brightly.</p><p>Zeke and Gerald make a few noises that try to be sympathetic but fall flat. Dawn laughs, one sharp burst. Sammy chuckles along. "Yeah. So. Guess you're free of me now."</p><p>"Good riddance," Dawn says, and lifts her water for a toast.</p><p>"Right."</p><p>He stands there for another couple moments, watching Dawn finish her water like she's doing a shot. She grabs a new one from the 48 pack on the counter, leaving his two on the table. Zeke and Gerald share a look. Zeke turns on his phone and scrolls through his notifications.</p><p>"Right," Sammy repeats. "Well, I guess I'll… go. See you all, uh." He won't see them later, or again. They definitely don't want to see him. He… should feel worse about that, but the fact of the matter is that he never got to know any of them well enough to miss them now. This is less cutting ties and more… letting go of connections he never managed to make. "Bye."</p><p>"Bye," Gerald says, giving a weird little wave. Sammy nods at him.</p><p>Then he leaves. And this chapter of his life closes.</p>
<hr/><p>Being a shock jock in a large city pays well, if nothing else. Sammy doesn't have to worry about paying his bills, even without a roommate or a job. His lease is valid for the next two months. This leaves him plenty of time to laze about the flat, catch up on the shows he always meant to get to, someday. Install a few games on his phone, playing until he grows bored and deletes them again. Plenty of time to sort through the bookshelves, pack away all of Jack's in an apple box he got from the grocery store. Flip through his own and decide if he'll ever actually read them. If he actually likes it or if it's just something he bought because it fit the image he was making.</p><p>Plenty of time to sit in the silence and remember, chest aching, all of the ways Jack used to fill it. All the ways he never will again.</p><p>(The shadows in his apartment seem too long, too dark. He hikes his electricity bill to an obscene amount keeping the lights on well into the night, illuminating every room in the apartment. This only makes the corners darker, their contents more likely to writhe in his periphery, stand perfectly still when he stares at them head on, watching until his eyes sting and the colors start to fade from the edges of his vision. Silver lights dance, stars in the moonless sky, and he has to turn away. Has to force his eyes to close, fight against the pain as his lids scrape over the dried out surfaces. He buys eye drops and they only help when he remembers to use them.)</p><p>Plenty of time to look for job openings, nearby and elsewhere. Sammy doesn't let himself analyze the reason behind rejecting anything in this city. Nor does he think too hard about why he's looking into the stations in Big Pine, Oregon, and then, coincidentally, its neighbor King Falls.</p><p>There are only two news stations in King Falls, he finds. Channel 13 is primarily a television broadcast, though they do seem to have an FM frequency. The other is aptly named King Falls AM, and the website he finds for it reminds him uncomfortably of those free website makers. He sends applications to both and settles in to wait, spending the rest of his day getting sucked into a series on Netflix.</p><p>He gets a response from Channel 13 the next day. It's less formal than he would expect from a workplace of this standing, short and mostly to the point. The gist of it, and he's only paraphrasing a little bit, is: "Sorry. We have no openings at the moment, but we'll keep you in mind if anything changes."</p><p>Which, Sammy knows, means that they're not hiring, please go away.</p><p>Three days after emailing the AM station, he wakes to find a response received at 3:46 am.</p><p>"We are looking for a host for our 2-6 am slot. Please let us know when you are available to start." It's signed with the name Merv and nothing else.</p><p>Sammy has worked at many a radio station in his life. He's done morning drive, lunch hour, evenings. He thinks he can manage just about any position they have open, even the shitty witching hour shift. It won't be that hard, he thinks, to play the part of a guy you'd expect to hear during the deadest hours of radio.</p><p>He figures it's already been long enough since Merv sent this email that it won't matter if it sits unanswered for a little longer. Besides, Sammy can't accurately say when he'll be available to start yet, doesn't know when he'll be in town to stay. His fingers move across the keys—<em>ctrlT king fal</em>—opening a new tab and typing immediately, trusting the speed of his expensive Wi-Fi to catch all of his words.</p><p>There are 67 apartments for rent at this time, according to the site he uses most often when he's moving. He clicks through the filters, limiting his search to one bed flats, and his options drop to 16.</p><p>Sammy finds a few places he likes, all on the cheaper side. He doesn't know how well this new job will pay and he wants to conserve his savings. He fights against the captcha, accidentally selecting pictures of <em>bi</em>cycles in his search for <em>motor</em>cycles, having to start over a few, aggravating times. He makes note of anything relevant, a few things he wants to ask about, and calls the realtors at a more reasonable hour than seven in the morning.</p><p>He tells them when his current lease is up, when he'll likely be able to move in. Asks if they think the flat will still be available then? The first two apologize, Helen telling him that this one is already being looked at by someone who can start renting sooner. Faraday says his usually has a quick turnover rate and it'll probably be gone by the end of the month.</p><p>He thanks each of them and crosses those addresses off his list.</p><p>Kendra says she'll see what she can do about holding the place in his name until he can get here. "We've been trying to rent this one for months," she says with a little laugh, clear and bright. "That probably makes it sound like a bad apartment, but it's actually very well maintained and comes semi-furnished. The biggest problem is its location, really. No one likes to live so close to the edge of town, out here."</p><p>"Well, I don't think that'll be too much of a deterrent for me. You said it's near the road up to your AM station?"</p><p>"It's the last building in town along that road, yes. You're starting there soon, right? I look forward to hearing your thoughts on our little town."</p><p>"Only if you're awake in the middle of the night," Sammy chuckles. Kendra laughs with him, and he wonders how much of it is real. How much is the professional face she puts on every morning before work. She sounds so chipper. But maybe things are different in a town where everyone knows everyone. Maybe you don't have to watch your back and carry an emotional shield every time you interact with someone, there. It sounds like a dream.</p><p>"I keep odd hours," is all she says.</p><p>They move on to more relevant topics: when he can come up to tour the place, when his current lease ends, if the security deposit and $850 rent works for him.</p><p>"It's less than half of what I'm paying right now," Sammy says, and laughs at the appalled noise she makes.</p><p>"Well, if everything's good for you, I guess the only thing left is signing the papers. You'll have to do that in person, but it'll also give you a chance to have a look at the place before you make any final decisions." Sammy hears clicking for a few moments before Kendra asks, "How's next Tuesday sound? Around four-ish, to give you time to drive up here."</p><p>"Sounds great."</p><p>The call ends after an exchange of pleasantries. Sammy switches over to his calendar app, adding in the appointment, then lets the phone drop, screen darkened, onto the couch beside him. He leans back, staring blankly at the ceiling.</p><p>Another step taken. He feels half out of this life already, and he isn't sure if it feels like running away or moving forward. A bit of both, maybe.</p><p>He closes his eyes and lets himself exist in the quiet for a while. The city moves on around him, lunch hour traffic starting to pick up, indistinct voices floating up to his floor. It would probably be quieter with the window closed, double pane glass muffling the sounds of life more effectively than height. He makes no attempt to move. It's… nice, to hear the city below him. It's a reminder that he's not the only one making choices and walking paths and letting time sweep him along.</p><p>Sammy doesn't mean to fall asleep. Honestly never thought he'd be able to, in the middle of the day, in this too empty apartment. The sounds of the city haven't died down, even a couple hours later, but they're different now. Shifted slightly to the left, similar enough unless you know the soul of the city. Sammy hasn't lived here long, but he thinks he knows some of its quirks. Not all of them, no. He won't have the chance to get to know them all.</p><p>He's going to have to learn to live in a new town, again. Going to have to get used to the sounds King Falls makes during the night, morning rush, evenings. Familiarize himself with the ambient noises; nature, people, the distant highway. He wonders if it'll be quieter there, or if it's just as loud in different ways.</p><p>Sammy stretches, wincing at the crick in his neck and the soreness in his limbs. He likes this couch, really, but it's hell to sleep on normally, let alone sitting up. He stands, wobbling only for a moment, before going to make himself some late lunch.</p>
<hr/><p>Next up on his list of tasks is phoning Gloria. His landlord is a fairly accommodating woman, and he doesn't think she'll make too much of a fuss over him terminating his lease early. He's resigned himself to losing the security deposit at the least, but it doesn't feel like a terrible loss. Technically, he hasn't had that money since the two of them moved in.</p><p>"Sammy, hey," she says when she picks up. Her voice is noticeably subdued and Sammy closes his eyes, resting his cheek against the couch. He's leaning against the arm, this time, legs stretched out along the seats. All the better for if he dozes off again. He isn't sure if he will, but it's comforting to get that worry out of his head. Now, all he has to worry about is money and whether his landlord is going to give him her condolences too, like everyone else who knows about Jack.</p><p>"Hi Gloria," he greets, and puts real effort into making his voice sound normal. He feels exhausted, but not in any way sleep will fix. This day is wearing him down. This day, this month, this year. "I wanted to talk to you about my lease?"</p><p>"Sure, what did you want to know?"</p><p>"Just. I'm planning to move soon. Not sure when, but definitely before May. Is there anything I need to do now to, like, end my lease early?"</p><p>She hums and while he doesn't hear any other noises from her end, he imagines her rifling through the stacks of paperwork in her office. "How early are you thinking?"</p><p>"End of April at the latest, probably. I have an apartment viewing scheduled for next Tuesday, and I'll need to pack up and store everything, so I'll probably still be here a week or so into the month."</p><p>"I guess if you pay the rent for March and April, I can let you off for May. I am going to have to keep your deposit though."</p><p>"That's fair." It's about what he expected.</p><p>There isn't much else to say after that. Sammy promises to call her again when he has a more definite move out date.</p><p>"And, for what it's worth, I'm really sorry for your loss," Gloria says, at the end. Sammy takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut. There it is.</p><p>"Thanks," he whispers, and hopes she leaves it at that.</p><p>She does, thank whatever deity takes pity on him today, and ends the call after a mumbled goodbye. Sammy sets his phone on the table and drapes his arm over his eyes, blocking out the world for a minute. Maybe two. Just long enough for him to lock away the grief again.</p><p>He knows it won't get any easier to handle until he starts to work through it. Until he lets himself <em>feel</em> everything he's meticulously burying in the darkest corners of his mind. But Sammy has so much left to do before he can fall apart. He can't do that right now.</p><p>It'll all come crashing down eventually, but he'll worry about that later. It'll happen. He'll be prepared when it does. Until then, he'll deal with the various steps he needs to take to move away, and only that.</p><p>He just needs to make it through the day.</p>
<hr/><p>There are a few boxes around the apartment, leftovers from previous times they've moved or decided to pack something up. He used one to store Jack's novels and their movies, some knick-knacks. He uses another, along with various newspapers and flyers from their overflowing and forgotten recycling bin, to pack up all the dishes and cutlery he isn't going to use in the coming weeks. He really only needs a couple of each, not the dozen or so they've collected.</p><p>Their assortment of mugs go in the last, smaller box, and Sammy spends a long time going through them. Every one he picks up reminds him of when they got it, if it was one he found or one of Jack's, the story behind it. The navy blue mug with a swath of stars from center to rim was Jack's favorite, a birthday gift. "Because you're always looking to the stars," Sammy said back then, cheesy and only vaguely adequate as a reference to Jack's real obsession with anything and everything unknown and mysterious. Jack loved it anyway, and that mug was the first he grabbed whenever he needed one.</p><p>…until he stopped paying attention, barely took the time to get anything to drink unless Sammy prompted it. At the beginning, Sammy would bring him coffee and tea in that mug. Jack never seemed to notice. Never noticed when Sammy used a different one, or if he didn't bring anything at all. He'd hidden the mug in the back of the spice cupboard, eventually, a petty act with only the vague goal of getting Jack to <em>talk</em> to him about something <em>normal</em> for once, even if it was just a three second interaction, one little question. It would have shown Jack was still in the same world as him, that he could still think about regular, human needs.</p><p>But Jack never asked.</p><p>Sammy closes his eyes. He holds the mug tightly, thumb running along the lip. It's a little more worn than it used to be, a little stained. Cold ceramic warmed only by this interaction, a faint layer of dust on the inside. It smells like cardamom, sickly strong. Sammy carefully wraps it with a sheet of newsprint and tucks it away.</p><p>He only leaves one unpacked, a small indulgence. A gag gift presented to him randomly, no occasion required. "I saw it and thought of you," Jack said, grinning cheekily and large enough to squint his eyes. It was matte black and Sammy turned it around between his hands until he found the print on the other side. <em>‘I’m a radio host’</em>, it proclaimed in bright white text. <em>‘I’m kind of a big deal’</em>.</p><p>Sammy held it close to his chest and raised an eyebrow haughtily. "I'm glad you've finally seen the light," he said. "I <em>am</em> a big deal."</p><p>Jack laughed, delighted, and Sammy only held out a few seconds before he joined in. Jack's laughs were infectious, always had been.</p><p><em>Always would be</em>, he'd thought then. That was two years ago. He'll never hear that laugh again.</p><p>"Get a <em>grip</em>," Sammy groans, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes until they hurt, the darkness bursting into shades of yellow and white. Silver specks encroach on his vision when he blinks. He blames the pain for the heat behind his eyes, and when he wipes away tears, he blames it for that too.</p><p>He turns the mug around so all he can see is black.</p><p>After that, he runs out of boxes. There's still so much left to pack, so much <em>stuff</em> that a home accumulates over the years. He never noticed just how much there is, how much two people can collect and store and forget about. The more he looks around, the more things he pulls out of surprisingly large spaces, the more he realizes just how big of an undertaking this will be.</p><p>It was so much easier for two people to move. Lily's scowl flashes through his mind, how she stood and watched as he and Jack packed up, how they separated their lives one cubic foot at a time, until nothing left was the same.</p><p>There's the same amount of stuff here as they took, all those years ago. More, after living here a while. This time, there's only Sammy available to go through it, to separate <em>his</em> from <em>Jack's</em>. To split his life even further, distilled into the pure, pitiful essence of him, alone. Reduced down to the dregs of how he used to live, properly alone for the first time since—Sammy realizes, all at once and with the force of a gut punch, that he's never really lived on his own. He went from his family to sharing a dorm with a stranger, to sharing a flat with the Wright twins, to living with Jack. He's almost thirty years old and he's never—he's never been alone.</p><p>It's so much, too soon, and he has to disengage. He leaves the loose piles of <em>things</em> where they are, scattered around the living room floor, and goes to make himself a cup of tea. If his hands are shaking, well, there's no one here to point it out, is there?</p><p>Jack had been surprised, all those years back when they were still learning to be friends, when he found out Sammy was a tea person. "You just seem like a guy who drinks coffee," he'd said.</p><p>"I seem like a lot of things I'm not," Sammy muttered in response. He wasn't out, then, not yet, not to Jack. He still isn't sure what Jack thought he was, back then, before a drunken night spiraled into heavy makeouts and anxious conversations.</p><p>It surprises all his friends when they find out he prefers tea to coffee. He still gets his caffeine, when he wants it, and there are so many more varieties that he actually <em>likes</em>. He hates the taste of coffee. He's never been able to find a kind he likes, a flavor combination that hides the bitter, burnt aftertaste but isn't so sweet it makes his teeth ache.</p><p>He still drank it at work or the few times he went out with coworkers for lunch. Being a coffee drinker fits the image, suits Shotgun, and Sammy suffered through many cups of the stuff to fit that mold.</p><p>He doesn't have to force himself to be something he's not in his own home, though. So he has his tea, and the few flavors that Jack likes—<em>liked</em>—and those boxes glare out at him when he opens the door to grab the chamomile. Sammy stares at them, at the fancy brands that were always a bit too pretentious for his tastes, at the dozen or more bags left, flavors he doesn't like as much as his boyfriend does—<em>did</em>.</p><p>Sammy closes the door slowly, the snick of the magnet almost inaudible, and goes to sit at the kitchen table. He slumps in his chair, elbows on the table and hands in his hair, eyes squeezed shut as tight as they'll go. All he can see is red, cloudy crimson, interspaced with darker branching threads that mark the veins in his eyelids. His eyes ache under the pressure but better that than the heat he can feel building behind them, the tears that crave to be shed.</p><p>It feels just a bit too pathetic to let <em>this</em> be what pushes him off that ledge. He's not going to cry over <em>leftover tea</em>. If he starts now, he'll never stop.</p><p>The kettle whistles, one high-pitched shriek. Sammy ignores it, head in his hands and focusing on simply <em>existing</em>, because anything more is just too much. The noise dies, fading out as the water cools. The sound mingles with the static clouding his mind.</p><p>He sits there, mind deliberately blank, until the threat of tears seems to have passed. Evening sunlight spills through the window above the sink, painting neat golden blocks on the floor. Sammy breathes.</p><p>He goes to bed early, leaving everything spread across the front room to be dealt with tomorrow. Tomorrow, he'll be able to look at it without falling apart. Tomorrow, it'll all be that much easier.</p><p>Today, he just wants to stop thinking and <em>sleep</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The gag-gift mug Sammy has is <a href="big-deal-radio-host-coffee-mug-radio">this one</a>. Jack bought <a href="big-deal-podcaster-coffee-mug-podcaster">a matching one</a> for Lily which he shipped to her. </p><p>Please excuse any inaccuracies in how I portrayed... any/all the people interactions in this chapter. I don't know how any of this stuff works.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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